Ukip seemed to be waging an American-style culture war — but the British didn’t appear to be interested. From October to election day, the party’s standing in the polls fell from 18 to 13 per cent. The dip can’t all be pinned on Ukip’s drift towards Tea Party politics, but a number of Kippers feel that Farage’s infatuation with America distracted him from his mission at a crucial moment, and unbalanced the delicate ecosystem that had allowed the party to flourish.

He has succeeded in the sort of environment least conducive to producing a candidate capable of winning a national majority. Over the past few decades, Walker's home turf of metropolitan Milwaukee has developed into the most bitterly divided political ground in the country—"the most polarized part of a polarized state in a polarized nation," as a recent series by Craig Gilbert in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put it.

Thanks to a quirk of twentieth-century history, the region encompasses a heavily Democratic and African American urban center, and suburbs that are far more uniformly white and Republican than those in any other Northern city, with a moat of resentment running between the two zones. As a result, the area has given rise to some of the most worrisome trends in American political life in supercharged form: profound racial inequality, extreme political segregation, a parallel-universe news media. These trends predate Walker, but they have enabled his ascent, and his tenure in government has only served to intensify them. Anyone who believes that he is the Republican to save his party—let alone win a presidential election—needs to understand the toxic and ruptured landscape he will leave behind.

"DES MOINES, IA – Word must have gone out early, either by word of mouth, or by all those social media platforms that conservatives have discovered since 2008, or perhaps by that strange wingnut telepathy only practiced by the true initiates who know all the conjuring words. (People could make Lois Lerner jokes secure in the knowledge that every single person in Iowa who would find them funny was somewhere in the hall.) In any case, the rhetoric at the Iowa Freedom Summit, hosted by Steve King and Citizens United, was startlingly muted. Oh, they hit all the proper notes. Liberty! Constitution! American exceptionalism! And the melodies were consistent; the first few bars were gloomy as they meandered through the many failures of the current administration, many of them largely imaginary, and then the final movement was all sunshine and rainbows and Republican promises of a brighter day. Every speech was like a Requiem Mass that concluded with a rousing chorus of 'Tomorrow.'" Charles P. Pierce of Esquirehas some colorful choice words to say about the recent
Iowa Freedom Summit.
posted by quiet earth
on Jan 25, 2015 -
46 comments

Bias in the Box. "This is where Bryan Stevenson’s 'undeveloped understanding' comes into focus. A prosecutor may say with the utmost sincerity that he doesn’t exclude blacks [from a jury] because of their race, but because they or someone in their family has been a victim of discrimination, which leads them to distrust the system. Because of their experiences, they are believed to be less motivated to sentence someone to die and are therefore less desirable on a jury." (slVQR) [more inside]
posted by Rustic Etruscan
on Oct 11, 2014 -
7 comments

Politico: "Young called his creed 'the religion of nature' and 'the religion of nature’s God.' And he made abundantly clear that, in his own mind, this radical philosophical religion was the axis on which the Revolution turned. For him, the project to free the American people from the yoke of King George III was part of a grander project to liberate the world from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion." [more inside]
posted by Wordshore
on Sep 2, 2014 -
26 comments

A few weeks ago, the liberal comedian Bill Maher and conservative strategist and pundit Bill Kristol had a brief spat on Maher’s HBO show, putatively over what instigated the tea party but ultimately over the psychic wound that has divided red America and blue America in the Obama years. The rise of the tea party, explained Maher in a let’s-get-real moment, closing his eyes for a second the way one does when saying something everybody knows but nobody wants to say, “was about a black president.” Both Maher and Kristol carry themselves with a weary cynicism that allows them to jovially spar with ideological rivals, but all of a sudden they both grew earnest and angry. Kristol interjected, shouting, “That’s bullshit! That is total bullshit!” After momentarily sputtering, Kristol recovered his calm, but his rare indignation remained, and there was no trace of the smirk he usually wears to distance himself slightly from his talking points. He almost pleaded to Maher, “Even you don’t believe that!”
“I totally believe that,” Maher responded, which is no doubt true, because every Obama supporter believes deep down, or sometimes right on the surface, that the furious opposition marshaled against the first black president is a reaction to his race. Likewise, every Obama opponent believes with equal fervor that this is not only false but a smear concocted willfully to silence them.

RAWStory.com reports on a study published by Psychology Today that claims the reason the OWS movement has not gained more traction within the Democratic Party (as compared to the rapid growth of the Tea Party on the other side) is that liberally-minded people see themselves more as a unique collection of beliefs that happen to be joining with other individuals, where conservatives see themselves more as part of a homogenous group of people with similar beliefs.
posted by softlord
on Dec 3, 2013 -
70 comments

A middle-aged man in a red golf shirt shuffles up to a small folding table with gold trim, in a booth adorned with a flotilla of helium balloons, where government workers at the Kentucky State Fair are hawking the virtues of Kynect, the state’s health benefit exchange established by Obamacare.
The man is impressed. "This beats Obamacare I hope," he mutters to one of the workers.
“Do I burst his bubble?” wonders Reina Diaz-Dempsey, overseeing the operation. She doesn't. If he signs up, it's a win-win, whether he knows he's been ensnared by Obamacare or not.
posted by reenum
on Aug 26, 2013 -
63 comments

In October 2010, William Niskanen, the 78-year-old economist and minority shareholder in the Cato Institute, died. The Koch Brothers, the liberal boogeymen who also finance most of the Cato Institute's operations, are now seeking control over Niskanen's shares and have sued the remaining shareholder and founder of the institute, Ed Crane III, in order to cement their control over the institute's future. [more inside]
posted by anewnadir
on Mar 6, 2012 -
71 comments

The talks between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner "collapsed" Friday with little more than a week to go before the United States may effectively default on its debt. The two parties have been in ongoing negotiations for months over GOP refusal to raise the legal limit on national debt unless tied to a significant package of spending cuts - with some members and activists opposed to any increase whatsoever[more inside]
posted by crayz
on Jul 24, 2011 -
3228 comments

"Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World). Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility."
This, and many other fun activities from The Paideia School of Tampa Bay's Tea Party Summer Camp.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Jun 15, 2011 -
125 comments

Five Alaskans have been arrested and charged with plotting to kill judges and State Troopers. At the time of their arrests, they had obtained illegal guns, grenades, and silencers. Schaefer Cox, the leader of the group, identifies himself with the Sovereign Citizen Movement and is a member of the Alaska Citizens Militia. The militia—one of hundreds of active “Patriot” Groups in the United States—maintains a website with pictures of bears, videos, and a list of Acts of War, which include “mandatory medical anything” and “involuntary involvement in anything.” [more inside]
posted by charmcityblues
on Mar 24, 2011 -
90 comments

New Hampshire House Republicans are pushing for new laws that would prohibit many college students from voting in the state - and effectively keep some from voting at all. "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," [State Speaker William O'Brien] added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."WaPo. Youtube. Yick Wo.
posted by Navelgazer
on Mar 8, 2011 -
90 comments

"Ron Schiller, NPR Foundation's senior vice president for fundraising, was recorded secretly on Feb. 22 by Republican filmmaker James O'Keefe, who is well known for his undercover stunts targeting various agencies. Schiller is seen on a videotape during a luncheon with men who were posing as members of the fictitious Muslim Action Education Center."*[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Mar 8, 2011 -
205 comments

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